Posts by Stephen Sharpe

Some info about the Apple Remote Desktop flaw

This is my best understanding of the situation:

This flaw will affect you whether you have ARD on or off, since the flaw actually exploits the fact that ARDAgent.app has the SetUID bit on. Basically it executes stuff as root user without requiring the admin password. So assuming your corporate Mac network doesn't use this for administration, you can just unset the SetUID bit.

> cd /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement

> chmod u-s ARDAgent.app

Job done.

For the record, have a Macbook Pro 15.4" with Leopard AND Vista 64-bit Business. Enjoy your flaming everyone.

Vista, XP, Leopard

Vista isn't the disaster it could have been. UAC is irritating, but you can turn that off. The new control panel names are also irritating, but not a showstopper.

For my sister's laptop it works fine. But I object to two things.

1) It's speed. Sorry, but it shouldn't be that slow on a Turion-X2 / 2Gb machine. I'm hoping SP1 will fix this. I upgraded from OS X Tiger to Leopard, on an old iBook G4 and yep it was often faster, definitely not slower.

2) And this is the fault of manufacturers. The amount of underpowered things they bung Vista on. Knock it off! Install XP.

Is it Microsoft's problem?

I don't think it's realistic to expect Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer.

If anything the problem doesn't necessarily lie with Microsoft. What bugs me isn't IE, but the sites that are written such that they break when used in anything else.

For example, I use Safari, and most sites work in Safari. I can install Safari in Windows and use that quite feasibly, so I don't see the problem with IEs presence. It's the individual sites that cause grief.

We all need to take responsibility for educating others in the use of other browsers. Not just Microsoft. And webmasters need to do some serious compliance work.

@Anonymous Coward

Nor me, Vista does seem to work on my sisters laptop.

Though the fact remains it is infuriatingly slow in my experience. On a brand new laptop. I'd rather use my Athlon XP based WinXP machine. Or ideally my iBook with Leopard.

No I'm not a "fanboy" before I get flamed. I like my Mac, that's what I use. I do consider OS X to be better, but that's through experience not worshipping Steve Jobs.

Hence I still have my XP box for gaming and photo storage. :)

I digress.

Vista seems to work, I agree. It's slow and irritating, but I think fixable to a certain acceptable point. I still prefer XP though.

BOFH

Maybe it was that Turkish wine he misappropriated from the boss?

PC World's installation

We only ever had a computer upgraded there once. 64meg of EDO RAM (the memories!!) and they put bad RAM in. Ok, that can happen to anyone.

What they didn't excel on was accepting they (directly or indirectly) had caused a fault. Saying that my problems with IEXPLORE and driver crashes and Windows hanging that only appeared after the RAM install must be due to bad drivers.

I even fresh formatted the thing.

They did eventually relent and do it again. Guess they didn't like being told by someone whose voice hadn't even yet broken.

Ah well, it helped me step from above-average luser to PFY. ;)

Never again.

Some of the staff are quite nice. Some of them are horrible. Good for printer cartridges in a rush. :)

I prefer Comet if I have to use a shop.